Convective Heat and Mass Transfer

Abstract

The coefficients of heat and mass transfer rate expressions depend on any fluid flows in the system. Our personal experience with “wind-chill” factors on chilly winter days and in dissolving sugar or instant coffee in hot liquids by stirring suggests that the rate of heat and mass transfer can be greatly increased with increasing wind speed or mixing rates. The technically feasible design of heat and mass transfer equipment requires calculating the transport coefficients and their variation with the fluid flows in the device, which depend intimately on the design of the device. For example, the area for heat transfer calculated for a tubular–tubular heat exchanger can be achieved by an infinite combination of pipe diameters, lengths, and for shell-and-tube exchanges, the number of tubes. However, selecting a pipe diameter for a given volumetric flow rate sets the fluid velocity in the pipe and the type of flow (i.e., laminar versus turbulent), which sets the overall heat transfer coefficient. This is why the design of heat and mass transfer equipment is often an iterative process. This chapter presents methods for estimating transport coefficients in systems with fluid motion. The central hypothesis for flowing systems is that the friction, resistance to heat transfer, and resistance to mass transfer are predominately located in a thin boundary layer at the interface between the bulk flowing fluid and either another fluid (liquid or gas) or a solid surface.